Ask a great coach what it takes to have a championship season and they will tell you that it takes more than talent to achieve greatness. Coaches and players that play and win at the highest level of competition develop a unique kind of mental-toughness and confidence in one-another drives that extraordinary results. In a winning season, this confidence can be seen in the camaraderie, energy, and unity among players and staff. When the relationships and bonds among players and between players and staff are not cohesive, the results are less than stellar.

So how might you apply these insights as leader or manager within your organization? It begins with you asking yourself 3 key questions.

Do most members of my team understand, in clear terms, what our ultimate goal for the year is?

Do they act like they are personally invested in and hungry to achieve that prize?

Are you observing the kind of special unity and camaraderie that would indicate that your team(s) are operating at their highest level?

For most managers, the answers to these questions are mixed. Only those managers whose teams are producing extraordinary results will answer “yes” to all 3 of these questions and even of these leaders, getting to 3 “yes’s” has taken very deliberate work and is most frequently a temporary state. Sustaining this state is what Bo Jacksons Sports Leadership Centers is designed to do for you organization.

At the Bo Jackson’s Sports Leadership Centers Of America, our team of corporate development professionals applies these same principles to develop extraordinary strength among employeeteams. We use a series of powerful, interactive, and fast paced “workouts” to develop mental toughness, team unity, ambitious vision, and what we call Extraordinary Team Strength.

Unlike the many sports organizations we serve, corporate teams are the only competitive teams in the world that do not practice.

In most corporate and professional settings, every day is game day.

Our programs are workouts and practice sessions that strengthen teams, build confidence, and help individuals accept greater responsibility for being their “best-self.” And while our experiences provide opportunities for teams to take on extreme challenges, the heart of our work is not about the physical activities. We have guests in every program that are not able or interested in taking on physical challenges. The real transformation happens in the lessons we teach and the way that we consistently inspire teams to strive for entirely new levels of interaction.

Some of the keys to developing extraordinary team strength include:

Having individual team members define what it means for them to be their “very-best-self” in team interactions.

Uncovering the deeper and highly individualized motivations that drive high performance.

Introducing leadership, communication, and trust-building models that can be easily applied in the workplace to accelerate the development of a more effective team culture.

Developing skills for giving and receiving feedback and for recovering from set-backs more quickly.

Eradicating negative gossip and other behaviors that undermine team unity.

While these may seem like lofty goals, the tools employed in our programs are proven and time tested among the highest performing teams in the world.

For more information about our Sports Leadership Centers of America and Corporate Team Building events, contact Aaron Conrad (aconrad@bjescolumbus.com).